Welcome to the Shroomery Message Board! You are experiencing a small sample of what the site has to offer. Please login or register to post messages and view our exclusive members-only content. You'll gain access to additional forums, file attachments, board customizations, encrypted private messages, and much more!

There is a common misconceotion gripping most humans, as I see it. The word natural is tossed around a lot. What is natural? What is natural living? Dictionary.com says: Present in or produced by nature. That is a solid definition. So why are certain foods, drugs, and vitamins defined as natural. The synthesized Vitamin C is identical to the naturally produced Vitamin C in chemical structure. Plant chemical sources are just more dilute in their plant form, but perform an efficient extraction and you have a powerful substance. Many people consider "natural" drugs like marijuana, mushrooms or peyote to be more healthy....but most of these people would not hesitate to pop a dose of "synthesized" LSD. Lets look at lifespan. Many people consider using mechanical means of life support to be unnatural, but man has been increasing his lifespan with technology since the stone age. I consider that there are no unnatural drugs, foods, or technology. There are many unsavory foods, drugs, and technologies...but they are all natural and as "God intended." Anything that made it through the Big Bang is natural. Hell, on Titan it rains methane. On Earth that would be catastrophic, but on Titan it is completely natural.

--------------------"A warrior is a hunter. He calculates everything. That's control. Once his calculations are over, he acts. He lets go. That's abandon. A warrior is not a leaf at the mercy of the wind. No one can push him; no one can make him do things against himself or against his better judgment. A warrior is tuned to survive, and he survives in the best of all possible fashions." ― Carlos Castaneda

humans are part of naturethe upper echelon of the animal kingdom (from the perspective of our own little niche)what we make is part of natureenvironmentalism IMO should be having compassion for the non-human AND the human, whereas usually it's the non-human at the expense of the human

--------------------"consensus on the nature of equilibrium is usually established by periodic conflict." -henry kissinger

unnatural is anything created by humans. this doesn't mean humans aren't part of nature, you could define unnatural as anything created by beavers and that definition would still work. it's just the word we use to distinguish to between those things that have been influenced/created by human conciousness and those that have not.

--------------------"A warrior is a hunter. He calculates everything. That's control. Once his calculations are over, he acts. He lets go. That's abandon. A warrior is not a leaf at the mercy of the wind. No one can push him; no one can make him do things against himself or against his better judgment. A warrior is tuned to survive, and he survives in the best of all possible fashions." ― Carlos Castaneda

Organic means that it has carbon compounds in it. Organic gardening uses no synthesized fertilizers.

--------------------"A warrior is a hunter. He calculates everything. That's control. Once his calculations are over, he acts. He lets go. That's abandon. A warrior is not a leaf at the mercy of the wind. No one can push him; no one can make him do things against himself or against his better judgment. A warrior is tuned to survive, and he survives in the best of all possible fashions." ― Carlos Castaneda

There is a whole field of chemistry devoted to carbon chemicals...organic chemistry. LSD is an organic material. I was refering also to the gardening term. "Organic" fertilizers are more dilute and cause less damage to the environment...they also do not toxify food. As stated, though, all chemicals are natural. Chemicals still in the vegetable or animal state are more dilute and more easily controlled in many instances.

--------------------"A warrior is a hunter. He calculates everything. That's control. Once his calculations are over, he acts. He lets go. That's abandon. A warrior is not a leaf at the mercy of the wind. No one can push him; no one can make him do things against himself or against his better judgment. A warrior is tuned to survive, and he survives in the best of all possible fashions." ― Carlos Castaneda

Well,hey, I wasn't around that day. We all know that history repeats itself.

--------------------"A warrior is a hunter. He calculates everything. That's control. Once his calculations are over, he acts. He lets go. That's abandon. A warrior is not a leaf at the mercy of the wind. No one can push him; no one can make him do things against himself or against his better judgment. A warrior is tuned to survive, and he survives in the best of all possible fashions." ― Carlos Castaneda

Since everything is natural (even man made things) there needs to be a term to define things that are grown.....plants for the most part.Organic is the first term that comes to mind, I'm sure there may be a better term.

When I think of a natural drug I'm referring to all the plants that have intoxicating effects in their original form (un-altered by man)....weed and shrooms are the main two.

There are many drugs that are made with/from plants (cocaine, heroin, alcohol...). I don't consider these drugs to be natural because they have to be altered/produced by man.If you chew the coca leaf to get the intoxicating effects, then your using the drug in its natural/original form and is probably much safer than the refined, man-made cocaine.

Most (if not all) man made drugs are toxic, and can lead to an overdose/death.

Natural/Organic drugs are, IMO, much safer than their man-made cousins.

Good definition.What about 'grades' of naturality ?The 100% natural, is completely without the conscious influece of man. Like a 100% natural fruit is only a fruit which has grown on a free-grown (not planted) tree, eaten fresh (without conservation) ?The next grade is a fruit from a, lets say, watered but unplanted tree.Next grade unplanted but watered and fertilized tree.The next level, planted but unsupported tree... and so on, untill we land on a 'fruit' that has been built in some lab from total synthetic substances.